


The Weirdo

by WarmaCrewe



Series: Calliope High [2]
Category: Namesake (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-20
Updated: 2015-02-20
Packaged: 2018-03-13 20:49:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3395882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WarmaCrewe/pseuds/WarmaCrewe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emma is excited about her school's computer class, but unfortunately she's assigned the worst study partner ever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Weirdo

**Author's Note:**

> This is going to be Chapter 2. Enjoy the whackness while it lasts.

  
She shouldn't have bought cafeteria food today. It was pizza, but Emma didn't know that “pizza” at Calliope High evidently meant a puffy bread thing with rubbery cheese, soaked in green water from the broccoli on her tray. Emma reached into her backpack and grabbed the granola bar she'd brought from home, making an internal note to pack a lunch for tomorrow.

Like she'd told Emma that morning, Agha had left halfway through the day for her doctor's appointment, and so wasn't there. Emma was sitting by herself, and though she knew that she probably should be socializing, she just didn't feel motivated to do so. Looking around the cafeteria she saw that she wasn't the only one eating alone – for all the 10th graders it was a new school for them, even if they knew kids from before. Although Emma had moved from an entirely different province, a lot of people were more or less in the same boat. So no big deal if she skipped the rest of lunch and put off making friends for another day. Emma dumped the contents of her tray in the bin and headed directly to the computer lab, one of the classes she was genuinely excited about.

Emma had been messing around with computers since she was a little kid, back when her dad's machine ran on MS-DOS. She was lucky that her father recognized this talent early on and had bought her books on programming, which Emma devoured. Her new school didn't have a girl's kickboxing team or hiking as part of Physical Health, but it had one of the best college prep computer science programs in Ontario. She was had already tested into the highest class available for a 10th grader, and the principal had told her to talk to the teacher about doing more advanced material.

When Emma found the computer lab it was completely dark, unremarkable since it was still 20 minutes till class was set to begin. She fumbled for the light switch along the wall. But then in a corner of the room a screen flickered on.

“Are you lost?” someone asked.

Emma jumped. “Sorry! I didn't know anyone was there.” She squinted at the shadowy figure. “Could you help me turn on the lights?” Without answering, the florescent ceiling lamps lit up.

In the corner a boy was sitting down. He held up a remote control and waved it. “Mr. Lemuel uses remotes for everything he can. It's pretty annoying when you first get inside.”

“Oh. Thanks.” Emma said. He didn't respond. “I uh, I just thought I'd come up to see the lab. It's my next class and I wanted to check out the machines here to make sure I get a good one.”

The boy shrugged. “They're all pretty much the same, but the ones over here have some additional software if you want to see.” He pushed his chair back from the monitor.

Emma took this as an invitation and approached him. Then she remembered her manners and stuck out her hand. “Hi, I'm Emma Crewe.”

He shook her hand, “Warrick Chopra.”

_Oh_ . So this was the guy Agha had warned her about. The scary pyromaniac who had set his middle school on fire a few years ago. They guy who did lots of drugs, spray painted cars and stole people's stuff if their lockers were open. Selva's twin. 

He looked completely harmless. Warrick had brown skin in a similar tone to Emma's and overlong dark hair that didn't suit his pointed chin and nose. He was wearing baggy, unflattering clothes – a black t-shirt and black cargo pants. This was especially ridiculous because he was so skinny that he looked maybe 120 pounds soaking wet . When Emma met Selva she imagined her brother would be like her, classic Indian features with an impeccable sense of dress. For a twin he didn't much resemble Selva. Except his eyes, which were large and almond-shaped like his sister's. 

As far as she could tell he seemed like a typical computer nerd, and she had been around plenty of them. Maybe Agha was scared of Warrick, but mentally sizing him up she was pretty sure she could take him in a fight.

Emma sat down right next to him. His eyes widened in surprise.

“It's nice to meet you, Warrick.”

*******************************

To her disappointment the curriculum in Advanced Techniques in Computing was mostly stuff she had learned before. In addition, the material she didn't know also seemed uninteresting. Their first real assignment was programming their fancy graphing calculators that they had been required to get for math class. Why would she need to program a calculator? What use would that ever serve her? Even worse, Emma saw that this assignment would be in pairs “so that students could learn from each other.” Great. That meant that she would need to hold someone's hand through all the steps even though she could finish the actual programming in 15 minutes.

Emma remained next to Warrick as the instruction began. This was one of the only classes where they didn't assign seats, but Emma noticed that nobody sat next to them, even though their station area had four computers and the rest of the class was full. That could be a coincidence, but she had a feeling it was because of Warrick's unsavory reputation. He looked like he was totally spacing out, drawing weird pointy graffiti-like letters on his notebook.

Mr. Lemuel walked them through signing into the workstations, using a power-point projector to illustrate the steps. Emma followed along, bored. She'd already skipped way ahead to the bottom of the lesson plan. Then she glanced at Warrick's screen and noticed something odd. He had the Power-Point slides up on his monitor. In fact, he had a lot of things there – the code for the lesson plan and a secondary window with Unix.

 _Maybe he's a hacker as well as a pyromaniac._ It wouldn't astonish her. Suddenly she noticed that Warrick was staring at her. He met her eyes and snickered. Emma looked away. She could take him in a fight, but what if he set her house on fire? Perhaps sitting here wasn't a good idea after all.

Halfway through class Mr. Lemuel started walking around to check on people's progress. Strangely enough, at their table he didn't even look at Warrick's screen. When he got to Emma's station he shot her a confused look and then nodded.

“Oh, Emma Crewe. Dr. Crawford said you might want to speak to me about doing more advanced work. What do you think about the syllabus?”

Emma smiled, relieved. “Honestly Mr. Lemuel I already know most of this stuff. You're mainly focusing on the C family of languages and I can already program in them.”

Mr. Lemuel smiled back at her. “Hmm, yes, that would be a problem.” He paused. “If you could take something from this year, in this class, what would you want it to be?”

“More in-depth PHP. And I guess SQL, but only because it would help me get a summer job.”

Her teacher laughed. “You're a practical one. I like it. Okay, tell you what. I'm going to need to test you out of part of this class, so I will give you the midterm and final early once I get Dr. Crawford to approve it. Unfortunately our school won't let you do college-level work until next year.” Emma sighed, but Mr. Lemuel kept on, “However I can help guide you through. I'm going to need to give you projects, just like the other kids, in order for you to earn your grade. Once I can see you can do it, I'll give you the tasks we give to upperclassmen. Then you'll be able to test right out of the next year's material and into the upper unit courses.”

Emma grinned excitedly, “Wow, that's amazing!” Then another thought hit her. “But isn't this an awful lot of extra work for you?”

“Not at all. I've already planned to do the same thing for Warrick.”

Emma looked at Warrick, startled. He had been so quiet that she'd forgotten he was there. Now his snickering had been replaced by an expression of clear skepticism.

Mr. Lemuel continued, “I need to get back to the other students, but you two should pair up and do the calculator assignment together.” Warrick groaned, but their teacher cut him off . “It isn't my decision – the math department requires you to have these idiotic devices programmed in our lab. This is the one assignment of the year all the 10th grade students need to do. I'm sure it will be easy for you both, and this way you can start working together. Group projects are the way to go, and with you both doing advanced coursework you can just pair up.”

He looked down at Warrick, “It will be good for you, Chopra. This is better than individual assignments all year.” Then his eyes flashed above their heads, “Yes Samantha? Okay, I'll be right there,” he said, striding over to help one of their peers.

Emma wheeled her chair around to face Warrick directly. He wasn't smiling. Neither was she.

This was really bad, and it was ironic too. Emma had gotten exactly what she wanted from Mr. Lemuel. She would be able to learn the material she wanted, which would definitely help get a decent job this summer. But it had come at the price of having to work with this psychopath all year. And he smelled like onions.

She sighed. “So... your place or mine?”

**********************

“He's coming over to your house??”

Emma sighed into her phone. “Agha, I want to get this tiny assignment out of the way as soon as possible, and I need to be home by four to watch Elaine. I don't have time to meet somewhere else and then go back.”

A pause. “Okay Emma, I get that you have some kind of reckless hero complex, but at least wait till tomorrow so that I can come over at the same time to be there if something goes wrong.”

“Agha, I'm going to be fine.” Emma said, letting some of her irritation show through her voice. “He looks like a twig that could snap in half. Also I do kickboxing.”

“You do?” Emma smiled as she heard Agha let out a breath of relief. “Oh good. Oh thank goodness.”

“Happy now?”

“Not happy, but better. I'm going to ring you at 3:30pm to check in. Just in case I need to call the police,” Agha said sternly.

Emma chuckled, “Yes, _mom._ ”

“Hey, someone has to be the responsible one.”

*********************

Emma had suggested to Warrick to take her bus over to the house, which obviously made more sense than him going home and having to get some kind of public transport. Warrick had paused, looked at his phone, and then said that he'd be there about ten minutes after Emma got in. She'd let it drop – maybe he had some aversion to her bus. Or whatever. The kid was bizarre.

She was pouring herself a cup of tea when she heard a loud engine revv down her street. As it got closer, she realized that it was pulling up to her place. Some kind of delivery person? Emma drew back the curtains to see a motorcyclist dismount and lock up his bike. As he pulled off his helmet she recognized it was Warrick.

Her mouth was still open in surprise as he walked up to her door. She swung the door open just as he had his fist raised to knock.

“Are you sixteen?” she blurted out. Well, that was a clever thing to say.

“Hello to you too, Emma,” Warrick smirked. He stood there, then cleared his throat. “Uh, can I come in?”

“Yes!” she exclaimed, blushing like a total idiot. She stepped aside to allow him to pass by.

He still had on stupid pants and his hair hadn't improved, but now he was wearing a leather jacket that actually fit him. She hadn't noticed that he actually had a nice upper body... kind of gangly, but broad shoulders. Thank god he took off his coat as soon as he got indoors so she couldn't dwell on that fact.

“I'll be sixteen in three months,” he replied, hanging his jacket and helmet on the coat rack. “Shoes on or -”

“You can keep them on. So you're doing something illegal?” she asked.

Warrick stared at her.

Of course. She was doing everything in the world wrong. The front door was even still open... she closed it belatedly. “Um. Oh. I'm sorry - that was rude. Please have a seat. Would you like some tea?”

“Thank you. Sure, tea would be great,” he said, and gingerly sat on the sofa.

Emma ran off to the kitchen and put the kettle back on. She tapped her fingers on the counter. He was supposed to be the odd one.

When Emma returned with the tea Warrick was standing up in front of the bookshelf, his head tilted to the right. “Errr...” she said intelligently.

Warrick whirled around and gave her a sheepish grin, looking like a guilty child. He gestured to the shelves. “I was just reading the titles. You guys have so many nice books here.” He cast his eyes down, “I'm kind of envious.”

“Oh, my dad's a Literature professor at the University of Toronto.” Emma let out an anxious laugh and set down the cups. “Actually, we've got a lot more all over the house. We run out of places to put them.”

Warrick's face lit up, but then something faded in him. He sat back on the couch and frowned. “Must be nice. So, want to get started?”

“Might as well,” Emma said, bringing over her bookbag. She pulled out her computer science folder and notebook as well as her graphing calculator. Then she glanced over at him. He only had out his papers. “Where's your calculator?”

“Oh. Guess I forgot it at home,” he said nonchalantly.

“You forgot your calculator? Warrick, that's the whole stupid project.” Emma sighed. “Never mind – we'll both just use mine. You can write down the code and just enter it in to yours when you get back. So, looks like we go to the graphing feature and to preferences – ” Emma glanced at Warrick. He was looking at the ceiling, clearly not listening to a word she was saying.

Oh hell no.

Emma snapped her fingers in front of his face. He blinked with a jolt and then narrowed his eyes at her. “What?”

“'What?' Warrick, we are supposed to be partners on this project. Are you even going to go through the motions of doing that?”

“Hey, I never said I wanted to be your partner,” he said sulkily, folding his arms over his chest.

“Neither did I! This is high school, and stuff happens. We're going to be stuck together at least for the semester, so how about you try to concentrate and be polite.”

“You haven't been very polite yourself.”

She looked down. He was right. “I was a little nervous about having you over. I apologize for that.”

“Nervous, huh?” he grinned widely. “I guess my reputation precedes me.”

Emma glared at him. “I prefer to see for myself what kind of person someone is before judging. Yeah, people say some pretty scary things about you. But,” she continued, raising her chin, “you don't look very scary to me.”

He rolled his eyes at her. “Listen Crewe, I'll be straight with you, since you're giving me the benefit of the doubt. First of all, everything you've heard about me is probably true. Second of all, yes, I'm breaking the law. Turn me in to the police, I really don't care. Third, did you consider when you gave Mr. Lemuel your list of wishes that I might not want to do all of that? And now I'm stuck following along.”

Emma had thought she was being pretty moderate with the material she suggested. “Warrick, what were you planning on doing in class?”

“Sliding by on a lightweight curriculum, getting an easy A and not needing to partner up with any irritating people.” He glowered at her. “And you've ruined it all.”

Emma raised an eyebrow at him quizzically. “Don't you even want to learn?”

“Oh, is that a problem for you, Ms. Goody-goody? What are you going to do about it, reform me into some kind of model human being?” he sneered.

That was enough.

Emma grabbed his shirt collar and pulled him into her face. “Okay buddy, stop acting like a spoiled brat, _now,”_ she growled.  “I chose to go to this school because I actually want to be a web developer. A damn good one, too. Now, you might not have the same goals, and that's fine. But our teacher has paired us up, and you are _not_ going to slow me down, got it? I am not going to carry your grades for you, and you are not going to sabotage me.” She released Warrick, who slid stiffly away from her on the couch. 

He looked absolutely shocked. Then he lowered his eyes, his face coloring. “I'm sorry,” he said.

She softened. “I don't know what you're trying to do by frightening everyone away. But here, in my house, how about we work together? I promise not to tell anyone.”

For the first time Warrick broke out into genuine laughter. “Well, if you don't tell anyone then I agree, Ms. Crewe”

“Don't be so formal. Call me Emma,” and she offered her hand to him again. Time to start over.

“Emma,” he said, and squeezed her hand gently as he shook it.

***************************

The kid sitting next to Emma on the sofa didn't appear much like her ordinary friends from Montreal. He was dressed from head to toe in black, poorly fitting clothes and had shaggy hair that seemed like he'd cut it himself. They looked up at Daniel as he walked in the door with Elaine.

“Hi Dad!” said Emma, getting up and giving them both hugs and kisses on their cheeks. “Hey Elaine, about time you were home _petite noisette_ ,” she said, poking her sister's tummy. Elaine giggled. Emma looked up at her father. “I didn't know you were picking her up today.”

“I wanted to talk with her teacher today about some things,” he said.

Elaine kicked off her shoes and bounced over to the boy, plopping next to him on the sofa. “Emma, is this your boyfriend?” Her friend's eyes darted to Emma with alarm.

To Daniel's consolation Emma laughed. “No, silly, this is Warrick. He's my assigned study partner for our computer class.”

 _Thank goodness._ If there was one guy he didn't want Emma to date, Daniel was pretty certain it was this one. Nevertheless, he held out his hand to Warrick. “Daniel Crewe. I'm Emma's father.”

The boy stood up, “Warrick Chopra. Pleased to meet you, Mr. Crewe.” At least the kid had manners.

“Assigned” Elaine mused. “ _Donc, tu n'avais pas le choix, oui?_ ”

“Elaine!” scolded Daniel. “English, please, in front of guests.” But Emma's father sincerely hoped at that moment that the boy did not speak a word of French.

Emma glanced at Warrick. “Warrick, do you speak French?” she asked calmly.

“Not well. That was way too fast for me to follow,” he replied.

Emma nodded. “All right Elaine, you know what that means. If you don't know something, ask me or dad for help, okay?”

Elaine pouted. “Fine,” she said, getting up from the couch.

Daniel observed that Warrick was staring at the carpet uncomfortably, hands in his pockets. He had a sudden fatherly instinct which told him this kid didn't have a lot waiting for him back home. “Warrick, why don't you stay for dinner?”

Emma averted her eyes, “Um, yeah. That's a great idea.” Daniel knew he'd made a mistake. His daughter didn't like this guy, even as a friend.

“No, I shouldn't, I don't mean to intrude on -” Warrick began, but then Emma seemed to change her mind.

“No Warrick, I mean it,” she took his hand. “Please stay.”

“Why does he smell funny?” Elaine whispered to Daniel. Or what she thought was a whisper.

 

**Author's Note:**

> * Elaine is saying, in French: "So, you don't have a choice, right?"
> 
> DISCLAIMER: “Namesake” is the copyright of Isabelle Melançon and Megan Lavey-Heaton. This story/art is licensed under the Creative Commons as a attribution, non-commerical work. No profit is being made off this piece.


End file.
